An analogue of levels of processing in human memory is proposed as a framework within which to view animal learning and memory. Two rehearsal processes are hypothesized. Maintenance rehersal is a flexible, limited-capacity process that functions to preserve information in memory for relatively short-term use. Associative rehearsal is the process, partly automatic, by which events are coded and more permanently stored. Several classes of data are amenable to this view, including effects of retroactive interference on delayed matching-to-sample performances, effects of spaced presentations on learning and memory, and some data on conditions for associative learning. Two lines of research are proposed. The first aims to define the degree to which the rehearsal processes interact. Exemplary experiments concern the extent to which both processes compete for limited capacity and the extent to which associative rehearsal (learning) may proceed independently of maintenance of information in short-term memory. The second set of experiments aims to more fully define the characteristics of maintenance rehearsal, including conditions for use and disuse of maintnenace (directed foregetting), its susceptibility to attentional distractors, and limits on its capacity. This research should expand knowledge of memorial and cognitive processes in nonhumans and so contirbute to a growing comparative psychology of information processing.